Decadi
by vikung-fu
Summary: AU, Kamen Rider DCD, elements of Kamen Rider: Kamen Rider Decade fights against Shocker for the sake of human freedom!
1. Chapter 1

**I. Black**

The streets were warm with the light of the sun, cicadas singing in chirping whispers from behind worn fences of chain-link and the sparse trees that lined the sidewalk. Above several stone steps, a wooden bench sat, abandoned and forlorn in the brooding warmth of early autumn, branches hanging low from neighbouring trees and chips of wood and dirt spread out on the horizon before it.

Beneath the bench, beneath the steps, was a road, infrequently visited by traffic and disowned by pedestrians.

Upon the street, innocuous and uncared for, stood a quaint little photography studio; its manner often lending those faithful few that passed down said street to mistake it for a coffee shop. Everyone who passed commented on the Hikari Studio's likeness in appearance to a very similar coffee shop that used to stand in the same place. Some speculated that the owner, an eccentric gentleman by the name of Hikari Eijiro had been too lazy to refurbish the grounds when he picked up the lease, others maintained that secretly he actually preferred the idea of running a coffee shop but could not admit this to his abrasive granddaughter.

In the midst of such speculation, no one stopped to realise that the day before, Hikari Studio had not stood on the premises it now occupied, and that each person that passed, each person that made comment on the quaint little studio or drew breath from the rich air of the city around them, had possessed a marginally different surname and past.

Standing on the street before the studio, Kadoya Tsukasa looked out dispassionately as a single blue car passed, driver hunched over the wheel and child slumbering in the back.

His hands dug deep into the pockets of his short trench-coat, his hair moving with the faint breeze; short enough to be respectable yet just long enough to cause irritation each time the wind moved and obscure his sight.

"Black," he murmured, feeling the weight of the autumn heat upon his shoulders and sensing that perhaps his coat was not the most seasonal of choices.

He looked down at the coat and nodded slowly.

The coat was his own, his clothes had not changed.

"Black," he muttered again.

There was no role for him in this world.

On the pavement behind him, he heard the pressure of Natsumi's heels on the paving slabs that led from the studio to the street.

A knowing smile touched his lips.

He didn't need to turn to see her worried expression, it was already evident in the cautious way she approached him.

"Black," he said again with a sigh and turned despite himself, confronted by the familiar round face and defined fringe and, most importantly, the expected expression of concern and nervousness.

She looked up and down at his clothes, her expression shifting to one of mistrust.

"What's black?" she asked defensively.

He smirked again and reached out to tap her head with his knuckles, a move she swiftly avoided by taking a single step back and glaring fiercely at him.

"The portrait, Natsumikan," he sighed impatiently, "the portrait was black."

She blinked and then gestured back towards the door.

"You mean the blind? Is that what you're sulking about?"

At the door, Onodera Yuusuke appeared, his own youthful expression grave and foreboding as he hurried towards them in his well worn white trainers, laces trailing in the dirt behind him.

"I spoke to Eijiro," he said, gesturing, like Natsumi before him, at the door, "he tried to pull the blind up again, but it won't move. It's just…just…"

"Black," Tsukasa completed for him.

He took a moment to take in the facets of the other boy's appearance, the baggy jeans and garish baseball jacket, both of which he was convinced had gone out of fashion sometime in 1991. If he hadn't seen the other people of Yuusuke's Earth he would have been tempted to assume that the other boy was simply a product of retroactive culture, perpetually fixed at the dividing line between the 1980s and the 1990s, yet no one else on that world had possessed as awful dress sense as Yuusuke.

"What do you think it means?" the other boy asked at last, uncomfortable with his companion's gaze.

Tsukasa sighed once more and shrugged, turning away to face the street again, just in time to catch sight of a second car pass by, its passenger an equally bored child and its driver yet another harassed parent.

"It means we're outside of the nine worlds," he said softly, "that somehow we've fallen through a gap in the universe."

He paused, a smile again catching his lips and lifting them up.

"In astronomy, scientists divide up the lifespan of the universe into a system called _Cosmological __Ðecades_; a series of epochs stretching out from the Big Bang to the far future."

He turned back towards them, the smile now poisoned with the smugness of his explanation.

"If you can accept that then you can accept that, outside of the nine worlds we know to exist in relation to our own, there must be other _Ðecades_."

Natsumi scowled at him for a moment and then abruptly lunged forward and jabbed him in the neck with her thumb, eliciting a howl of laughter from the surprised Tsukasa and worry from Yuusuke as he tried vainly to place himself between them and prevent further damage.

On the bench above the steps, watching with glowing oval eyes, a lone figure stood stoic and alone, a red scarf moving in the breeze.

At his side, his gloved hands tightened into fists and behind his masque, his face set in determination.

Leaves moved at his feet, the sound of the voices below echoing in his ear and then, in an instant, he was gone, the bench once more forlorn and abandoned.

Beneath the bench, beneath the steps, was a road, infrequently visited by traffic and disowned by pedestrians.

Upon the street, innocuous and uncared for, stood a quaint little photography studio, home to three young friends, each one a polarity point for a different timeline, a different _Ðecade_.

Lazily, the clouds moved across the autumn sky.


	2. Chapter 2

**II. Ichigo's World**

"Let go of me! Let _go_!"

He struggled desperately, hammering his fist against the adult's broad chest and kicking at his shins, all to no avail.

Before him, the other adult remained placid in the driver's seat of the old beige car, the door held open by a third man dressed in a black uniform with a skeletal design upon the chest, his face hidden behind a balaclava.

"Let go of me!" he screamed again, struggling to break free of the man's grasp and turning to face the deserted street. "Dad! Dad! _Help_!"

Towering above him, the pale, expressionless features of his kidnapper broke into a malicious smirk.

"Boy, your father is exactly the reason why you're in this mess," he snarled, his voice gruff, "so pipe down and try a bit of co-operation, yeah? Maybe then you might be able to walk properly when you see your father again."

He screamed out in frustration and abruptly felt the blow of a gloved fist crashing down into the back of his head, rattling his teeth and sending him to his knees.

"Stupid kid," the voice snarled, "I told you to try co-operating, didn't I?"

Oodōji Kotarou's head slumped forward, his vision blurred and his body screaming with pain. Beneath his feet, the stones seemed somehow darker, the shadow of his kidnapper cast long upon the ground.

His eyes closed and opened and, for a moment, he could have sworn the adult's shadow was less like a man and more like some hideous beast and then, mercifully, unconsciousness took him, and he thought no more of his pain.

* * *

Tsukasa idled by the front door, his eyes distracted by the serenity of the abandoned street and his thumb occasionally depressing the button atop his camera, freezing the scene before him within the camera's viewfinder.

Both Yuusuke and Natsumi had headed off to waste time in town, leaving him to brood aimlessly outside of the quaint little shop, unable to fathom his purpose in a world that had no use of him.

Sighing, he pushed the button one last time and recapped the lens, allowing the pink Holga to sway gently on the strap around his neck.

Kaitō Daiki had interfered with the movement of the house before, momentarily trapping him in his role as a student of SMART BRAIN High School yet the other man had never fully succeeded in so effectively denying him a role. It was as if the universe had rejected him, forced him from his path and abandoned him amidst the shadows of another timeline, an alternate _Ðecade_.

He turned to head back into the house when suddenly another car careened onto the street, the familiar pattern of driver and child skewed by the slumped form of the unconscious boy and the leering man in dark sunglasses holding him down.

The car skidded past him, affording Tsukasa a glimpse of a second man, equally sinister in his own pair of sunglasses and a driver, face hidden behind a balaclava.

"This world might not have a role for me," he announced quietly to himself, setting out in a run after the car, "but I can still recognise someone in trouble when I see them!"

Expertly, he snapped open the _Ride Booker_, swiftly drawing out a single card with his fingers and holding it before him as he ran, flipping it over in a vain attempt to attract the attention of the three men in the speeding car.

He reached down, tearing a heavy white belt from his coat pocket and placing it over his waist, allowed the inherent artificial intelligence within the belt to awaken at his command and draw a band of metal around him to secure it in place.

With one hand, he unlocked the belt into its secondary form, and slammed the card down into it with his other.

"_Henshin_," he announced, the word a declaration of intent rather than a command.

Particles of energy cauterised in the air about him, rushing to one another to form sheets of impossible metal, armour burning its way into existence from the gaps between unseen realities.

He spread his arms wide and the sheets of metal flocked to him; twisting about his limbs and locking into place until his entire body was clad in a suit of perfect, obsidian armour, the only colour being the glow of his masque's emerald eyes and the lines of a white '_x_' traced upon his right shoulder.

With a further flash, seven cards of light materialised and drove forward, lodging themselves into his helmet and bleeding a hue of red into the shoulders and gauntlets of the suit.

Before the armour had fully crystallised about him, he reached down once more, snapping a second card free from the belt and unlocking the device once more.

'_Kamen Ride_,' the machine called out with mechanical bravado, the card sliding down and inducing a brief series of holographic icons to indicate the processed command.

Tsukasa moved his hands over the surface of the belt, palms splayed, the atmosphere about him charged with static energy.

'_RYUKI_!' the belt announced with pride and the armour around him shifted, transforming in a blur of colour into a second suit of red, overlaid with a silver breastplate and helm, the masque divided by a grid that obscured its swollen eyes.

Without pause, he launched himself forward and disappeared.

There was a blur of movement in the wing mirror of the distant car and then Tsukasa burst forward from the rear view mirror, lashing out with his fists in two consecutive blows that sent the driver's head reeling and the car skidding to a stop, its tail-end spinning on the road, tires screeching.

With a howl of rage, the square-jawed man in the passenger seat slammed forward, his naked head crashing into the dragon decoration on Tsukasa's helmet and still managing to throw the armoured man backwards, shattering the windscreen of the car and rolling off the hood.

Swifter than any human, the passenger tore open his car door, blood streaming down his face, the mark of the dragon scarred into his forehead as he staggered over to where Tsukasa lay in the road, the Ryuki armour fading, giving way once more to the original red and black design of his initial suit.

Reaching down with a giant hand, his breath shallow and his eyes wild behind the sunglasses, the giant yanked Tsukasa up from the ground, thrusting his face forward against the cool metal of the masque.

"You'll regret that," he hissed.

"I wouldn't count on it," the younger man answered with disinterest.

Bursts of light exploded from the man's back, Tsukasa holding out the Ride Booker in Gun Mode, the barrel shoved against the creased white shirt and loose black tie.

In pain, the figure staggered back, his hands reaching up and tearing the sunglasses from his face.

"Bastard," he screamed, his face shifting, revealing a darker countenance disguised beneath his human features, "I'll make you pay for interfering with us!"

The flesh rippled, warping as the darkness seemed to rise, shattering the assumed human appearance and revealing a hideous bat-like visage, its snubbed nose and wide ears twitching as a high-pitched scream filled the air, piercing Tsukasa's ears and forcing him to stagger back a step.

From the backseat of the car, the second man rose up, the child still held in his grasp and his face devoid of expression.

"Kadoya Tsukasa," a quiet voice called out at his shoulder.

He whirled around, his eyes widening as he caught sight of another figure marching down the centre of the road toward them, the blade of a sword slung over their shoulder and their armour seemingly carved from polished wood and black plastic. Ornate gold decorated the design in parallel to the dividing lines of white on his own standard armour.

About his neck, a red scarf fluttered wildly in the wind and, imbedded within the wood of the masque, two fierce bulging insect eyes blazed with white illumination.

Lifting his arm, the stranger pointed with his finger, stopping abruptly in the road before the car, steam rising from beneath the hood and obscuring the details of his ornate suit.

Tsukasa followed the other's line of sight in time to see a short man with an expression of indignation standing upon the roof of the nearest house, a large white belt similar to his own and yet very different bound around his waist.

He lifted up his arms, striking them out from his chest and glaring down at the bat monster below and the immobile car, its driver slumped and unconscious over the steering wheel.

The monster lifted its head, spittle flying from its fanged maw as it sighted the other.

"Damn you," it hissed, "damn you all!"

Slowly, the man moved his hands down, the muscles of his face taut and his expression fearsome.

"_Hen_…_shin_!" he roared and leapt into the air, the centre of the belt whirring frantically as the wind that caught the blades at its centre sent a surge of energy rushing through the man's limbs.

The figure that landed in a crouch in the road on the other side of the car, the two villains and their hostage, was clothed in armour, a red scarf hanging from his neck in much the same style as the first stranger.

Slowly, Tsukasa turned to face again the gaze of those bulging, lamplight eyes.

"Who are you?" he whispered softly.

There was a silence for a moment and then, beneath the wood, the owner of that archaic armour smiled calmly.

"Kamen Rider," he answered softly, "_Ðecade_."


	3. Chapter 3

**III. Second**

"Curse you, Kamen Riders!" the bat hissed, flecks of spittle staining the coarse hair of its jaw, "Curse you to the very pit of hell itself!"

From behind him, the crouched figure rose up, his gloved hands tightening into fists and his scarf billowing, the resonance of his spirit energy signature awakening.

He turned and looked over his shoulder, reaching out and pointing a finger towards the suited man, heavy hands still upon the child's shoulders.

"Shocker kaijin! Release Professor Oodōji's son!" he commanded, his voice clear and unwavering.

A twitch of expression crossed the other man's face.

"Hitomoji Hayato," he hissed, "come any closer and I'll kill the boy!"

Beneath his skin, bones cracked loudly, flesh shrugging free of its human disguise so as to reveal the form of a hideous arachnid monster, compound eyes studying the scene before it and vicious mandibles twitching with anticipation.

"Give us Professor Oodōji and the secret of the GX Device and the child will be returned to you," the beast hissed, its lips quivering as it spoke.

Beneath the masque, Hitomoji's expression was unreadable.

"Damn you, Shocker, you won't get away with this!" he hissed in a low voice, his head suddenly snapping up and his eyes turning toward the figure standing behind Tsukasa.

Tsukasa felt his heart hammering in his chest, swallowing hard as he reached for the Ride Booker, struggling to regain control of the situation.

"Kadoya!" the other Rider suddenly called out.

Before Tsukasa could react, Ðecade was moving, one fist crashing into the bat monster's chest whilst the other reached down and flipped open a leather book at his side, drawing forth a single card and spinning it in his gloved hand before sliding it into his own belt.

He turned and looked over his shoulder, his glowing eyes casting illumination over the '_x_' marked upon Tsukasa's armour.

"Watch and learn, Kadoya Tsukasa," he remarked.

'_Kamen Ride_,' the belt remarked in identical tones to Tsukasa's own, '_SKULL RIDER!_'

The varnished wood and smooth plastic faded in a shimmer of dull light, replaced by black leather and a heavy motorcycle helmet decorated with the likeness of a human skull.

"Rider Uppercut!" Hitomoji roared, bringing his fist up beneath the jaw of the spider monster and lifting its feet from the air.

"Rider Punch!" Ðecade answered slamming both fists forward in a one-two combination that shattered the bat beast's ribs and sent it staggering back, gasping from breath.

The spider crashed down onto the roof of the car, buckling the metal with the force of its impact as Hitomoji's red gloved hands reached out and caught the stunned child before he struck the pavement.

Rushing past Ðecade, Tsukasa struck out at the staggering bat, shattering its jaw with his fist and sending it crashing to the ground.

"Who are you people?" he snarled, the emerald green eyes of his masque ablaze with rage.

"We are the Kamen Riders of another age," Ðecade announced, stepping around Tsukasa and slamming his leather gloved fist down into the bat's head as it rose from the ground, "another Cosmological Ðecade, to use your own words."

Tsukasa's fist caught the bat once more in the face, sending it sprawling back, unmoving at last, against the side of the ruined car.

"You're the people who turned the blind to black!" he snapped, pointing an accusing finger toward the skull masqued other, "You're the ones interfering with our journey!"

Ðecade shook his head sadly.

"Your journey was derailed by the passing of Gomoto Takeshi moving through your world on his way to a confrontation with your armour."

Tsukasa glanced down at the suit he wore.

"My armour? Gomoto Takeshi?" he repeated in confusion.

Ðecade nodded firmly.

"Your armour, amidst the emptiness of the Riderless World, commands shadows to rise up as Gomoto rushes towards it. The nine worlds through which you pass contain the warped shadows Gomoto casts on the wall of the Fifth Dimension – it is those reflections that the King of the Riderless World turns into puppets and sends out to prevent the arrival of the first king in his domain."

Slowly, Ðecade took a step forward, the leather of his trousers and jacket creaking as he moved.

"Kadoya Tsukasa," he said firmly, "the nine worlds you know and the Riders they contain are but shadows of the first king. Your armour knows this and, in time, it will destroy you in order to strengthen itself for a final confrontation with its predecessor."

"That's not true," he whispered, shaking his head, "that's _impossible_!"

"Kamen Rider!" a frail yet enraged voice called out.

Both Decade and Ðecade turned as one to gaze upon the sight of an old man in an immaculate white suit, his flesh pulled back from his teeth in a grimacing smile as a cape swept out behind him.

"_Shinigami Hakase_!" Hitomoji spat the name, his grasp on the child's arm tightening as he struggled to hide the boy from view.

The aged man hissed in recognition, his wrinkled flesh seemingly rippling with every word he spoke.

"Kamen Rider Niigo, Skull Rider – give back to Shocker what is rightfully ours!" he demanded, reaching out and pointing towards the child.

"Liar!" Hitomoji snarled in return, "Shocker has no claim to Oodōji's son or the GX Device!"

"I think," the ancient man hissed, "that you will find yourself very much mistaken, Hitomoji Hayato!"

With a dismissive wave, he gestured towards the streets above the lonely road as, from the shadows an army of shuddering monsters appeared, each one howling its name in a cacophony of noise and screams.

Smiling, Shinigami Hakase glared once more at his opponents.

"Now," he chuckled softly to himself, "we shall negotiate the terms of your surrender!"


	4. Chapter 4

**IV. Grande-Kaijin**

Tsukasa reached for the Ride Booker, tearing it open and slamming the card down into his belt.

'_Attack Ride_,' the machine called out in a mocking voice, '_Illusion_!'

About him, light flashed once again, coalescing into identical forms of his own armour, each one controlled by the central intelligence at the belt's core – the intelligence that the other Rider had hinted would one day drive the suit on without him into a confrontation with the original Kamen Rider of the world he now occupied.

Gathering on the upper streets, the air thick with their howling calls, the monstrous army of Shocker mutants tightened their ranks, the contact seemingly breaking down genetic barriers between them, reducing flesh to liquid that flowed like a tidal wave above them.

Behind the emerald eyes of his masque, Kadoya Tsukasa watched as the churning waters of genetic mutation broke over the streets, pouring themselves into the air and reforming in the shape of one final, hideous monster, its massive, clawed feet crashing into the road either side of Shinigami Hakase.

"Increasing your numbers won't help, boy!" Shinigami wheezed, his eyes bulging with hatred.

"_Grande-kaijin_," Hitomoji snarled, tightening his fists, "you've gone too far this time, Shocker!"

Behind him, Ðecade shrugged free of the countenance of his Skull Rider armour, placing a hand on Tsukasa's shoulder.

"He's right," the other man remarked, drawing three cards from his own leather and vinyl Ride Booker, "strength of numbers won't defeat Shocker, only strength of _will_."

Tsukasa quickly shrugged free of the grasp.

"I don't know who you think you are," he answered smugly, his voice level, "but I won't sit back and leave that monster unchallenged."

"Then work _with_ us, Kaodya Tsukasa," Ðecade implored.

Beneath the masque, Tsukasa sneered with disinterest.

"I don't even know who you are," he began but was silenced as the other Rider began to talk, his voice earnest.

"Kadoya Taki," he said firmly, "I'm with the FBI."

Tsukasa blinked.

"F-B-I?" he enunciated.

Ðecade nodded.

"I was assigned to investigate Shocker's kidnapping of high level United Nations officials. Whilst in New York, I met with Gomoto who entrusted me with this," he tapped the clockwork belt about his waist with one finger, eliciting a chime as his gloved finger pushed against the glass yet failed to stir the inner machinery from its regular workings.

"I don't know what it is or how Gomoto came across it, but I know that it changes the world around us, _moves _us somehow through different aspects of reality."

"_Cosmological __Ðecades_," Tsukasa said, echoing his earlier thoughts.

Again, Ðecade nodded.

"So you see, our mission is not that different."

Kadoya shrugged.

"Except that I'm supposed to destroy the nine worlds I move through."

"Don't believe that," Hitomoji snapped, looking over his shoulder, "Kamen Riders are the defenders of justice. Fate wouldn't entrust a Rider belt to a man with ill intentions."

For the briefest of moments, Tsukasa thought of the worlds he had moved through, of the arbitrary violence and destruction of the Riders of Ryuki's World and the contracted salarymen of Blade's World.

He wanted to believe that all Kamen Riders were heroes; that all Riders, no matter how disparate, fought for a better world against the tyranny of monsters. Yet how could he equate that with the things he had seen amongst the nine worlds, and how could he believe such a thing when knowing that his own belt was determined to rise against him?

"Believe in yourself," Ðecade urged, "believe in your own capacity to avert tragedy."

Slowly, Tsukasa nodded and around him, the simulacra of his suit seemed to come alive.

"You're right," he said slowly, "I guess I can trust you after all."

Ðecade nodded again, sliding a card into his clockwork belt and strolling casually past Tsukasa and towards Hitomoji.

"In which case, I'll leave you to deal with Shinigami Hakase, whilst we," he lifted his head to look once more at the howling Shocker monster, "whilst we deal with grande-kaijin _Dokusasori Otoko_!"

'_Final Form Ride_,' the belt called out, '_Niigo_!'

"Hitomoji Hayato," he said quietly, "lend me your power."


	5. Chapter 5

**V. Hissatsu**

Hitomoji thrust one fist into the air, whilst the other remained balled at his waist.

The belt he wore, so striking in comparison to Tsukasa's own _Decadriver_, hummed with power, turbine blades spinning at its centre as Hitomoji grew exponentially in height,

Dokusasori Otoko staggered back in surprise, its clawed feet leaving scars on the concrete as it moved, eyes wild with rage and fear.

Ðecade placed a hand on Tsukasa's shoulder, nodded and then leapt upwards, landing in a crouch upon the giant Rider's shoulder, his scarf billowing.

"Ridiculous!" Shinigami Hakase hissed, "This is absurd!"

From behind him, the shadow illusion of one of the remaining Rider's puppets lashed out, the Ride Booker transformed in its hands into its sword variant and the blade tearing through the elderly man's cloak.

A further two strikes from the gathered puppets cut down both the bat and spider monsters as they struggled to recover, their flesh reduced to dark smears upon the broken concrete.

"Y-You can't be serious!" Shinigami wheezed, "You! You're a devil!"

Tsukasa shrugged, lifting two fingers to his forehead.

"I've heard that," he smiled, watching as the elderly Shocker general skipped forward once more as another of the shadows lashed out behind him, "but I'm not sure you're in a position to judge."

Wildly, the old man looked about at the summoned Riders, his frail hands easing into fists as his eyes bulged and sweat stood upon his brow.

"I'll show you," he gasped, black flames of spirit aura curdling about his stained white suit, "I'll show you my _true_ power!"

Tsukasa continued to walk idly forward, flipping open his own Ride Booker, pulling free a card and slotting it down into the belt in one movement.

'_Final Attack Ride_,' the machine called, a sequence of light patterning the space between them and forming several walls of illumination, '_Dimension Kick_!'

He leapt up into the air, gentle chimes resounding from the belt as the light before him clicked into the optimum sequence and, stretching his leg out, momentum carried him down.

Shinigami Hakase staggered backwards, the suggestion of shuddering darkness moving behind his paper-thin flesh, the stench of dark ocean waters and dead fish washing forth from his sickening aura as, about him, rank tentacles of monstrous birth began to unfold.

Tsukasa's foot tore through the corridor of light and slammed hard into the villain's chest, smashing the ribcage and driving him down to his knees.

Those foul tentacles withered, twisting desperately up for the cool of Earth's oxygen from their nesting place amidst the old man's flesh and then his body exploded in a tower of flame.

Above them, Hitomoji turned the red eyes of his masque to face the enraged Shocker kaijin, a smirk forming upon his concealed lips.

Howling with rage, the beast rushed forwards and, steeling himself, Hitomoji met its charge with a swift blow to its head, his gloved hand curled into a fist.

"_Dai Rider Punch_!" he cried out with triumph.

Dokusasori Otoko stumbled, the ground shuddering beneath each step and Hitomoji moved once more, his fingers unclenched and his face carrying an expression of controlled triumph.

"_Dai Rider Chop_!"

His blow struck against the creature's neck, carving into the flesh like a blade and sending a wash of black blood spurting out and over the streets below.

Calmly, Kadoya Taki opened up his Ride Booker and pulled free a new card, inserting it into the narrow slot in the top of the clockwork and glass belt.

'_Final Attack Ride_,' the belt called, '_Ðecade Guidance Kick_!'

As one, both Hitomoji and Ðecade jumped up into the blue skies, their movement identical as both Riders stretched out a foot and descended down towards the wounded kaijin.

Feebly, Dokusasori Otoko threw its claws out to shield itself, its black heart pounding in its chest as it crushed the smouldering remnants of its master in its eagerness to retreat.

Hitomoji's foot smashed through the claws, shattering them as if they were but sticks and slammed hard into the beast's throat whilst Ðecade's own foot smashed into its giant eye, a wave of water and blood exploding outward as the Rider back-flipped away and landed again on the ground beside Tsukasa.

The monster staggered one last time and then exploded in a shower of gore and ruin.


	6. Chapter 6

**VI. Finale**

The roar of an engine filled the air, tires screeching in protest as a driver yanked up the handbrake and span his battered, yellow jeep to a halt.

From the passenger seat, Professor Oodōji launched himself out, his leather shoes tapping a rhythm against the broken street as he rushed toward the prone form of his son.

"Kotarou! Kotarou!" he cried, embracing the child, "Thank goodness you're safe!"

Slowly, the jeep's driver reached up and removed his sunglasses and canvas hat, staring at the fallen shapes of the bat and spider kaijin and shaking his head in admiration.

"You really finished those guys off," he said with a smile and then stopped abruptly, staring directly at Tsukasa as he moved his hands over his waist and his armour faded. "Huh, now who are you, I wonder?"

The younger man offered a half-smirk and sidestepped the remains of the Shocker kaijin, their bodies already dissolving into a morass of foam and liquid.

"Just a passing through Kamen Rider," Tsukasa offered with a wave of his hand.

Ðecade turned to look over his shoulder, his hands moving in a similar fashion to Tsukasa's as his own antique wooden armour faded from view.

"Going so soon?" he queried.

The younger man turned and smiled.

"This isn't my story," he said, "and if you're right about my suit plotting against me then I'm not going to learn to subdue it by acting as your shadow."

The other smiled warmly in response. Despite sharing a last name, there was little similarity between the two. Taki's hair was longer and darker, his smile less reserved and his shoulders broader. He wore a heavy leather jacket and red scarf tied about his neck, a reflection of the uniform he wore as both Ðecade and Skull Rider.

"Passing through Kamen Rider," the older man with the canvas hat repeated with a frown, "you would have thought Shocker had learnt their lesson."

"Shocker won't give in that easily," Hitomoji remarked, strolling toward them, his helmet held under one arm. "This is why Kamen Riders must continue to fight for humanity, whilst we most continue to safeguard freedom and peace. We must continue to be _heroes_."

Tsukasa smirked and dug his hands in his pockets.

"Keep on fighting then, heroes," he offered with a wave of his hand, "I've my own destiny to meet."

"Ichigo is strong," Hitomoji called out suddenly, "if you hesitate and allow that belt to consume you, he won't spare you."

The younger man paused, the smile no longer upon his lips.

"Then I guess I'll have to get stronger," he offered.

Without a further word, he walked on, hands in pockets and head never looking back.

Behind him, Kadoya Taki, Hitomoji Hayato, Tachibana Tobei and Professor Oodōji and his son watched him leave, each one lost within their own personal reflections on what they had witnessed; in Oodōji's case on what he had almost lost, and, in Kadoya's case, on what he had almost gained.

"Kamen Rider fights against evil for the sake of human freedom," Ðecade said softly, watching the other man leave. "Godspeed, Kamen Rider Decade, _Godspeed_."

**FINIS**


End file.
